Sombrilla

The University of Texas at San Antonio Online Magazine

Dig This

Imagine life on the shores
of the San Antonio River
9,000 to 10,500 years
ago. Hard to do? UTSA
archaeologists got a
glimpse into that life after
unearthing more than 500
artifacts while assisting
in the San Antonio River
Improvement Project in
South San Antonio. They
found projectile points
and woodworking tools
thought to be for making
canoes all those thousands
of years ago.

Closer to downtown
San Antonio, archaeologists
discovered the trash
of one of Bexar County's
first surveyors. There
were bottles and ceramic
fragments, along with
meat bones and oyster
shells, thought to be from
the homestead of John
James, who lived along
North Presa Street in the
mid-1800s.

At the Micro-Level

The UTSA South Texas
Center for Emerging
Infectious Diseases will
receive $4.6 million over
the next five years from
the U.S. Department of
Defense Army Research
Office to establish a
Center of Excellence
in Infection Genomics.
The grant will support
microbiology research,
teaching and outreach
activities aligned with
Army priorities. Infection
genomics is the scientific discipline in which
biologists characterize
functional properties
of the entire genome of
infectious organisms.

Commissioned

President Ricardo Romo
and UT System Chancellor
Francisco G. Cigarroa
were appointed by President
Barack Obama to
serve on the President's
Advisory Commission on
Educational Excellence
for Hispanics. The commission
is charged with
expanding educational
opportunities, improving
education outcomes and
delivering a complete
and competitive education
for all Hispanics.

All Business

The College of Business has a new bachelor of
business administration
degree in sport, event
and tourism management.
Coursework
includes the study of
tourism, sport and event
management, sport
marketing, economics
of tourism and leisure,
tourism law and destination
marketing.

Going Bookless

Hate lugging around that
huge science textbook?
UTSA Libraries are now
lending eReaders to
students, faculty and
staff who want to read
pre-loaded popular and
scholarly science and
engineering content.

Building Bone,
Rebuilding
Lives

UTSA biomedical researchers
created a scaffold
that can be used
to mend or regrow bone
lost because of trauma
or disease. If approved
by the FDA, it could be
on the market and used
by patients by the end
of 2012.

From B.S. to M.D.

Beginning in fall 2013,
students can get their
bachelor of science degree
in biology and their
doctor of medicine degree
in seven years. It's
through a pilot program
offered by UTSA and
the University of Texas
Health Science Center
at San Antonio. The
program's first students
are expected to graduate
with their M.D.s in
2020.

Special Collection

Seventy-five boxes of
papers related to Texas
Biomed, Southwest
Research Institute, Mind
Science Foundation
and other partnerships
and corporations are
available to researchers
and scholars at the
UTSA Libraries Special
Collections.
The papers belonged
to Thomas Baker Slick
Jr., founder of the Texas
Biomedical Research
Institute and span from
1938 until his death
in 1962. They were
donated to the university
by his family in August.